Category Archives: Afghanistan

Nostalgia Trip: 5 Classic 50s Battle Rifles

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In the 1950s cars were made out of steel, cigarettes were a food group, and men scraped the hair from their face with a straight razor. That decade where Elvis was thin and everybody liked Ike was also the golden age of the battle rifle.

In 1953, the infant NATO military alliance adopted the US-developed 7.62×51mm T65E3 cartridge as its standard rifle round. This round was destined to replace the US .30-06 fired by the M1 Garand, the British .303 of the Commonwealth Armies, the 8mm Mauser of the West German Army and others. It brought to the table a shorter length round that still had the power of the cartridges it replaced—but with less recoil. This led to a number of so-called battle rifle designs, ending the 70-year reign of the bolt-action rifle in military service. and Guns.com is looking at five classics, many of which are still around today:

Read the rest at GUNs.com

m14 ebr seeing hard service afghanistan 2013

(The m14 in the hands of the soldier above in Afghanistan is likely as old as his father, but is still trucking. Classics are like that)

The L85 British Bullpup: The last Enfield

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It’s hard to imagine today but for over 150-years the UK firearms arsenal at Enfield armed the world. Their 3-band rifles were the go-to gun of the US Civil War and their Short Magazine Lee Enfield bolt guns kept London from having the street signs redone in German through two world wars.  Then in 1985, everything went pear-shaped.

In 1954, RSAF Enfield and BSA began production of the 7.62x51mm NATO caliber L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle for the British military to replace their long-serving stocks of Short Magazine Lee Enfield Rifles, a design that had lasted the Brits for nearly 70 years. The L1A1 was a version of the Belgian FN FAL rifle, set up in semi-auto and using SAE or ‘inch-pattern’ templates rather than metric. It proved a hard serving rifle and saw use in the Suez, Malaysia, Aden, Northern Ireland and the Falklands as well as being adopted by close allies Canada, Australia, and New Zealand among others. However by the late 1970s, the L1A1 was a bit long in the tooth, and well, a bit long overall (45-inchs) as well. With most of NATO at the time already using smaller, 5.56mm-chambered rifles such as the M16, FAMAS, and HK33, the UK decided to get on the smaller caliber/smaller weapon bandwagon.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

l85 (2)

The RPK: The Super Kalashnikov

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Take an AK-47, give it a 75-round magazine then make it even more robust as to allow for long periods of full auto firing.  What you would get might look like the RPK light machine gun and in a world where assault rifles are princes and the AK-47 is an aging king, the RPK is a god on the battlefield.

Machine guns were the deciding factor on modern battlefields ever since 1914. During World War One the US Army introduced the Browning M1918 BAR automatic rifle, a 16-pound select fire gun that spat 30.06 ammo out at 650-round per minute until its 20-round magazine ran out. These smaller, one-man machine guns could be issued down to the squad level to provide a huge increase in firepower. By World War II, the concept of a squad automatic weapon was widely spread and the Soviets wanted one.

Their first model, Vasily Degtyaryov’s RPD, came in at 16.31-pounds empty and brought a 100-round belt of 7.62x39mm ammo into the battlefield in 1945. While the RPD was a nice gun, it was heavy and used a milled receiver, which made production slow. In 1947 the Soviets went with the stamped receiver AK-47 and soon enough they were brainstorming about how to replace the RPD with a lighter and more AK-ish weapon.

This led to the RPK.

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

rpk firing russian marine

What US Army Patches are Really called…

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You gotta love the patch (aka distinctive unit insignia) for the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team….(aka the “Sperm Cookie”)

army patches and thier real nicknames

Danish War Doc Armadillo (Free whole movie)

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In February 2009 a group of Danish Soldiers accompanied by documentary filmmaker Janus Metz arrived at Armadillo, an army base in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometer away from Taliban positions. Good stuff. 1hr 40mins.

Heavy Metal with the M777 155mm Howitzer

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If you are a US Solider or Marine hunkered down in some remote forward base and the perimeter is crawling with what are politely called, ‘unfriendly’, the sweetest call that can be made is for a fire mission. Since 2005, this type of call has increasingly gone to a new, effective, and hard-hitting howitzer– the Triple 7.

During World War 1 (1914-1918), large caliber heavy artillery became the all-encompassing Mother Medusa of the modern battlefield. The United States entered that war behind the technological 8-ball and had to make due with French 155mm guns to provide punch for the dozens of new infantry divisions sent ‘over there’. The French guns weighed 7300-pounds and could fire three 100-pound shells a minute out to 12,400 yards.

Following WWI, the US decided to design their own 155, the 13,000-pound M114 that could fire four shells a minute out to 16,000 yards. In the quest for bigger, faster, and better, the Army replaced this gun with the M198 in 1977. The M198, designed with input from fighting in Vietnam, could fire four rounds per minute out to amazing 24640-yards. That’s 14-miles. The problem was, the gun weighed just a hair under 8-tons. While it could be parachuted into tight spots, or carried by supercargo USMC CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, it was still a heavy beast.

Then came the M777 of today.

Read the rest in my column at Firearms talk

M777A2_towed_howitzer_155mm_US_United_States_Army_002

Spotted- an Amtrac R7

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Played around near one of these today so thought I would share since its kinda rare to spot one in the wild. Its the recovery vehicle variant of the Marine amtrac. Since FMC made less than 1400 amtracs, and this subvariant probably accounts for less than 10% of that production, I figured I would share…

IMG03014-20130320-1630

From the dossier:
AAVR-7A1 (Recovery): This vehicle also does not have a turret. The R7 is considered the
“wrecker”, as it has a crane as well as most tools and equipment needed for field repairs. It is by far the heaviest of the three, and sits considerably lower in the water. Crew of three, not including the repairmen. The vehicle is designed to recover similar or smaller size vehicles. It also carries basic maintenance equipment to provide field support maintenance to vehicles in the field.

800px-US_Navy_020912-N-8087H-005_AAV_launches_from_the_well_deck
Manufacturer: FMC Corporation
Date First Prototype: 1979
Date First Production Vehicle: 1983
Weight:
Unloaded: 50,113 Pounds (Less Crew, Fuel, OEM, and Ammo)
Combat Equipped: 52,123 Pounds (Crew, Fuel, OEM, and Ammo)
Load Capacity: 21 Combat Equipped Troops (@ 285 Pounds) or 10,000 Pounds of Cargo
Fuel Capacity: 171 Gallons
Cruising Range:
Land at 25 MPH: 300 Miles
Water at 2600 RPM: 7 Hours
Cruising Speed:
Land: 20 to 30 MPH
Water: 6 MPH
Maximum Speed Forward:
Land: 45 MPH
Water: 8.2 MPH
Maximum Speed Reverse:
Land: 12 MPH
Water: 4.5 MPH
Engine:
Make: Cummins
Model: VT400
Type: 4 Cycle, 8 Cylinder, 90′ Vee, Water Cooled, Turbocharged
Fuel: Multifuel
Recovery Equipment:
Generator: 120 VAC Output
Air compressor: 145 PSIG to 175 PSIG
Welder: Miller Maxtron 300
Hydraulic Crane: 6000 Pounds Capacity
Crane Winch: 23,000 pounds Breaking Strength/ Length 85 Feet
Armament and Ammunition: M60D Machine Gun (currently the M240G)
Unit Replacement Cost: $2.2 – 2.5 Million

The AC-130 Specter Gunship: The flying first lady

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Americans have long had a fascination with arming airplanes. In 1912 when the aeroplane was only just 9-years old, a US Army officer brought a Lewis machinegun up for a test flight, zipping rounds at targets on the ground below. An observer at the time asked, “Why would you want to put a machine gun in an airplane?” Well the ultimate evolution of that is the AC-130 Specter gunship.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

 
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The Greener Police Shotgun: Engineered gun control?

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So your country has a reputation for traveling to exotic foreign lands and taking them over as part of your growing worldwide empire. In said new lands, you still need to arm the locals to keep the criminal element in check (much cheaper than providing a police force) but at the same time, you don’t want to give them modern military grade weapons that could be used against your own troops if things got real. This has happened in history many times but in this case, the colonial power in question was the British Empire and the gun that was the product of this was the Greener Police Shotgun.

It’s an odd gun, with an odder history, but if you find one makes a nice collectable (and a symbol of engineered gun control).

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

greener-police-4

The DShK ‘Dushka’ Heavy Machinegun: The Russian ‘Ma Deuce’

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The standard service heavy machinegun in the western World is the vintage 1933 Browning M2. Those who have used them lovingly call this .50-caliber warlord, the “Ma Deuce”. What you may not know is that, on the other side of the fence, the Soviets invented their own equivalent heavy machine gun. Like the ‘Deuce, this Russia design, while officially labeled as the DShK 1938, it is better known to the ruskie as simply Dushka.

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

DShK is great for home defence but rather improbable as a CCW piece

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